Staff demonstrate against CSIRO outsourcing

BY CHRIS SLEE

MELBOURNE — Four hundred people demonstrated on August 29 against the proposed outsourcing of the CSIRO's computer system. The demonstration, held outside the Casselden Place building, was organised by the CSIRO Staff Association.

Workers from other government agencies under threat of outsourcing, including the Bureau of Meteorology and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), attended.

The federal government is outsourcing information technology across the public sector. The CSIRO Staff Association argues that it will lead to the loss of highly skilled IT staff, massive cost increases which will suck money out of scientific research and cause job losses, huge administrative upheaval and an inability to guarantee the security of commercially sensitive information.

Shane O'Connell from the ATO section of the Community and Public Sector Union spoke about the adverse effects of outsourcing the ATO computer system to EDS, an IT transnational. Every phone call by an ATO staff member to the EDS help desk costs the ATO $26.

In Canberra, Stuart Martin reports, 300 CSIRO workers attended an August 29 rally on the lawns of Parliament House.

From GLW issue 419